Hi friends,
Today, I want to share the first part of a multi-part series exploring some of the things I learned during my ✨ burnout era ✨.
Whether you're currently experiencing burnout, have been through it, or might face it in the future (sorry, but you probably will), I hope this series brings you comfort and reflection on your own working practices.
Let's get into it, shall we?
The cycle of self abandonment
I used to be the type of person who couldn't function if I had work deadlines looming overhead. Office hours? I didn't know them. I was working all hours of the day. If I didn't have anything better to do, there was always something I could get a head start on for the next day.
To achieve this, I pushed aside parts of my personal daily routine in favour of prioritizing work. How could I possibly settle into savasana at the end of a yoga session when I had social media posts to deliver, video edits to make, presentations to prepare, and probably five other things I was forgetting?!
The cycle went something like this:
Over time, this cycle eroded any sense of distance between my work and personal life. I monetized all of my hobbies, neglected rest, holidays, and time off, and planned content in my head during silent meditation retreats. It was, if nothing else, exhausting.
Slowing down for clarity
It wasn't until the COVID-19 pandemic that I started to feel increasingly out of balance. The borders were shut, and I was forced to sit in my apartment all day, every day. I couldn't escape just how much of a workaholic I had become. When travelling and working, I at least had a reason to get off the computer and go outside—a kayaking adventure with hostel friends, a hike for sunrise or sunset, karaoke night at the local gay bar—but during COVID, I couldn't do anything but work.
On days when I was (rarely) able to prioritize myself before work with a walk or small yoga session, I noticed a remarkable difference in my mood, self-confidence, and attention span. It took months of conveniently forgetting how good I felt after prioritizing self-care and coming back to the cycle of self-abandonment until I learned my lesson: work is not important, stop putting yourself last.
However, upon learning this lesson, it was still hard to establish a routine that served me before others. I tried putting sticky notes around my apartment, established shared accountability with friends who I could safely go for walks with during Melbourne's lockdown days, and even let myself get really angry about internalized capitalism—sorry to those of you who listened to my rants on my IG story back in the day.
Testing boundaries
The calendar ticked over to 2022, and in May, I was finally allowed to leave the country again. I was heading straight into four months of work with a familiar tour company that I had worked with before COVID. ‘This is going to be a good test to see how good my boundary-setting is now’, I thought.
I swapped perpetual hostel dorm accommodation with more Airbnbs, hotels, and private rooms than I had stayed in all my travel years combined. I started to prioritize my to-do list by the 'type' of work: deep work which required lots of brainpower, quick tasks like sending emails, and tasks which took a little bit of time to complete but didn't require a lot of energy. This helped me get the easy, quick tasks out of the way and not overload my schedule with too much deeper work. I went out less, drank less, and prioritized rest as much as I could.
However, I was still struggling with establishing a movement and meditation routine. I also stopped finding joy in taking photographs for my own personal development. I was constantly working on brief as a means of survival. I had no creative vision of my own and no motivation to create.
This was my lowest point. Seeing my joy and passion for photography turn into something that ticked a box made me open my eyes and finally do something: take a sabbatical from my work.
Solace in Sabbatical
I stopped working full-time in October 2022 and embarked on finding out what I wanted to do with my time outside of my usual paid work. I went and volunteered at a yoga and meditation centre in Hawai'i, where I worked on establishing a consistent yoga and meditation routine. I spent two months in Australia taking on minimal commissions (a wedding and one music festival) and worked on feeling financially secure in earning less. Resting on my laurels was not something in my vocabulary until this point. After that, I went to Japan to work as a tour guide for five months, following a newfound passion.
During my time in Japan, I was able to clearly see just how detrimental it was to skip the essential self-care tasks I had worked to build up. If I didn't take time out for myself, prioritize my tasks, or forget to feed/water myself, a bad habit would be waiting in the wings to make a grand entrance. Emotional eating, anxiety, body dysmorphia, drinking, sleep deprivation, and depression were just some of the familiar old friends that came to visit.
I resigned from the job in Japan for many reasons that deserve their own newsletter. Reflecting back on that decision a year later, I can see that choosing to leave was the first big step I took to validate, care for, and assert myself after years of being in the self-abandonment cycle. I am still so proud that over the past few years, I have been able to cultivate such a strong sense of self-worth (I still have a long way to go) to the point that I can confidently resign from a job and trust that I would work everything else out later.
Practising change over time
I wish I could say that there was a light switch that turned on one day that helped me to establish personal boundaries with work, but ultimately, it was a lot of lessons over many years that helped me to build up the skills and confidence needed to fearlessly pursue myself over others.
The worst part about this lesson is that absolutely nothing changes until you first start to practice making the changes.
All the anxious chatter in your mind that stops you from taking care of yourself in favour of prioritizing work doesn't just magically disappear. It takes repetitive practice to slowly create space between your anxious self and your rational self so that, over time, the voices become less loud.
Final reflections
While I’m still working to make many of these changes a consistent and lasting habit, I feel like I’m finally walking on a very well-defined path instead of wading through fog without a torchlight.
And that’s all for today!
I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you can relate and what helped you find a more self-determined path.
Also, if you haven’t read yesterday’s post, I share a few things that have been inspiring me. You can read it here.
See you tomorrow, Caro 👋